For close to 40 years, the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) has been operating in the sleepy oil-bearing communities of Offoin-Ama, Belema and Ngeje in Akuku-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State. The communities complain about alleged gross neglect, marginalisation, impoverishment, enslavement, maltreatment and environmental devastation. Irked by the unsavoury situation, the host communities staged protest which caused the closure of the flow station in the area. ROSEMARY NWISI reports.
The sleepy oil-bearing communities of Offoin-Ama, Belema and Ngeje in Akuku-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State have been in the news of late. This was as a result of the controversy surrounding the continuous shut down of Oil Mining Lease (OML)-25 flow-stations, operated by Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), is generating.
The three Kula communities, Offion-Ama, Belema and Ngeje share hosting rights to the flow station located in a part of the island Kingdom of Rivers State.
The multinational oil giant has allegedly operated in the environment for almost 40 years. Despite these long years of operation, the communities have become poorer while the oil operators get richer. The communities have made every effort to make the oil company to consider the welfare of members of the host communities without success.
Members of the communities decried alleged gross neglect, marginalisation, impoverishment, enslavement, maltreatment, environmental devastation; failure to comply with the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) it signed with the host communities, among others necessitated the shutdown of the facility by women and children of the communities since the past two years.
But the company denied the alleged neglect, insisting that the welfare of their host communities remains paramount to it.
The SPDC is operating the flow station as a consortium with 32.3 per cent stake on behalf of SPDC, Total E&P and Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC), in Joint Venture with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) which controls 60 per cent stake while an indigenous oil company known as Belema Oil Producing Limited has 7.7 per cent participating interest in the facility which it inherited from Chevron Nigeria Limited.
The people declared Shell persona non grata, insisting that it is no longer wanted in the environment and should leave their land.
A chief of the community called for the withdrawal of the firm’s operational license and for the facility to be divested to another indigenous oil producing company.
He said SPDC has failed in carrying out its corporate social responsibility in the kingdom after it has degraded the communities and left them in a worse state than it met them.
They insisted that it (Shell) divests the oil facility to an indigenous oil company that has a stake in the facility, and that the host communities be given the-right-of-first-refusal in the divestment of the facility.
The protesters took over the flow station on August 11, 2017 to demonstrate their dissatisfaction against Shell’s activities in their communities. 
The women, who live, cook and engage in petty trading at the oil and gas platform vowed not to vacate the place for SPDC to come back.
However, SPDC claimed that it has spent over 300 million dollars in the development of the Kula Communities.
But the people denied the claim, describing it as false, unfounded and provocative.
To attract the attention of wider society to the deplorable state of the oil-rich communities, their chiefs and leaders held a world press conference at Offoin-Ama and the flow station respectively. They also conducted reporters drawn from local and international media round the communities for on-the-spot assessment of the areas and to verify the claims by the oil firm on the developmental state of the communities.
However, from Offoin-Ama to Belema down to Ngeje communities, the sights and sounds are the same-tales of woe, lamentation, impoverishment and high level of poverty among the people. The sights evoke some complete state of pity and despondency.
There are no signs of social amenities in the communities visited. There are no hospitals, good schools, no habitable houses and power supply. Houses in the areas are all shanties, made of polythene bags and trampoline. The rich among them built their houses with woods.
Hunger, poverty, hardship and total and criminal neglect of the areas are prominent features of the areas and these are etched on the faces of the residents. There is complete lack of government’s presence whatsoever in the places visited despite their huge financial contributions to the state and federal government coffers.
They also lamented lack of jobs, business and no artisan workshop anywhere in the area. Apart from a small patent medicine store at Offoin-Ama which apparently serves as health care facility to the people, the other shop in the communities is a bear parlour shop at Belema community.
Youths of the communities are jobless but cannot obviously say they are idle. They were seen loitering and smoking their hearts out with weed whose pungent smell oozes out as they passed.
The facility consists of a Gas Plant and an oil flow station which accounts for over 45,000 barrels of crude oil per day and over 135,000 metric tons of gas per day. This makes it a major source of revenue to the Federal and state governments.
Analysts put the estimate of revenue so far lost by the governments in the two years the business has been shut down to over 2 billion dollars.
Efforts by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) who regulates the country’s oil industry to resolve the protracted dispute among Shell and the host communities failed to produce any result.
Penultimate week, Governor Nyesom Wike wanted to intervene in the protracted rancour with the view of resolving it so the facility could be re-opened for operation.
The Governor was concerned about the huge sum of revenue the Federal and state governments have lost to the impasse in the past two years and the need for amicable resolution of the problems for operations at the facility to resume.
He called for a meeting of all stakeholders, including SPDC and the host communities but the communities criticised the Governor’s moves and boycotted the meeting.
They accused Wike of meddlesomeness, stressing that the Governor has no business interfering in matters of oil and gas, insisting that he lacks the statutory powers to preside over such meeting.
They described Wike’s intervention as unconstitutional and unpopular, arguing that oil-related matters are on the Exclusive List and not on the Concurrent List of the 1999 Constitution as amended.
Nonetheless, the Governor set up a committee led by the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Dr. Tammy Danagogo, and gave him seven days to resolve all disputes, reunite parties and re-open the facility within one week.
The host communities again boycotted the meetings convened by the government where a Memorandum of Understanding was purportedly signed to re-open the oil facility.
But the Chairman of Kula Supreme Council of Chiefs and the Amanyanabo of Kula Kingdom, His Royal Highness (HRH) Kroma Eleki was in the meeting and signed the GMoU said to be signed in the gathering.
But he, however, told the participants that the rightful stakeholders were absent and that his signing the agreement will not guarantee the vacation of the facility by the women.
He said: “I really did attend the meeting by the state government to broker peace between Shell and the host communities of OML25, flow station. As a government recognised monarch, I am supposed to attend such meetings and to advise the government on the way forward.
“I did attend and there was settlement agreement to sign and I did sign, but before I signed, I told the government and the public that the signing of that agreement do not lead to the opening of the OML 25 flow station.
“In any case, Shell has owed us for several years and we needed that money. So, signing the document was for us to access the money and, again, I also did tell them that the people with who they were negotiating at the meeting are not in the position to ensure the opening of OML25 and that the real stakeholders were not in the meeting.
“I advised them to be patient until they meet with the main stakeholders and that there is need for them to pay a visit to Kula Kingdom and the host communities to see things for themselves before they will be able to broker peace.”
Speaking on his position in OML- 25, he said: “Since Shell began operations in Kula, they have not done any significant thing for the communities. So, I stand with the people of Kula Kingdom, because of the suffering we are going through.
“I will not like Shell to come back to operate OML 25, it should give the right to other operators, if possible, to Belema Oil. He is our son, if on the other hand Shell feels that it has gotten license, they want to operate, Belema Oil has a stake in that partnership he should be given the operatorship of that stake, so that whenever they want to sale, he should have the first-option- of -refusal before they can sale it.”
The spokesperson of Belema Central Women Association occupying the OML 25 flow station, Mrs. Belinda Nokiman relived their ordeal to reporters.
She decried the poor state of the communities, adding that they do not have good drinking water in the area.
The woman, who spoke in Pidgin English lamented that they drink pond water that is infested with all manner of dangerous animals and unhealthy creatures such as snakes, fish and toads, among others.
“Go and see for yourself the kind of water we drink. Here, we drink pond water whose colour is like that of Lipton tea. The pond harbours snakes, toad, frog as well as fish, yet we have oil in our soil. We are tired of all this. It is time up for Shell in Kula Kingdom,” she said.
At Offoin-Ama, Chief Ibiosiya Nath-Sukubo revealed that the community plays host to several oil wells and oil delivery pipelines of the flow station, among others, expressing worry about possible outbreak of terminal diseases in the community as a result of oil and gas pollution.
“Offoin-Ama is a co-host to OML-25 and bellies the six and eight inches delivery lines, myriad of oil wells, the Sego Creek manifold, riser, Eastern Gas Gathering Lines (EGGS I) and NCTL among others. It is a principal oil-producing and pipeline community and a contributor to over 200,000 barrels of oil and over 1.5 million standard cubic feet of gas (mmscf).
“We are prone to serious ecological hazards such as earthquake and Tsunami, among others. The people’s natural source of income which is fishing has continued to diminish,” he said.
Continuing, Chief Nath-Sukubo reiterated the failure of SPDC to take seriously the welfare of its host communities in the area. He urged them to divest the flow-station to Belema Oil, maintaining that Shell will never be allowed back to the area.
“SPDC has been at the centre stage; operating in the area for almost 40 years without providing basic amenities for the people to, at least, alleviate their suffering.
“No potable water, good schools, electricity, roads and health facilities, among others. In fact, life expectancy is very low, hence in early August 2017; the community rose up in anger and shut down its operations in the OML 25, especially at the expiration of its lease.
“The information was that SPDC is concluding plans to divest the said field to Crester Energy Resources, a non-indigenous company. Kula communities of Belema, Offoin-Ama and Ngeje resisted the move.
Collaborating Sukubo’s views, the Paramount Ruler of Oko Royal House/Belema community, HRH King Bourdillon Allen Ekine called on the Federal Government to revoke Shell’s operational license forthwith.
He called on the Federal Government to send a fact-finding team to the communities to see the state of the communities to confirm their state.
“Our demands are that Shell’s operatorship license of OML25 be revoked and handed over to an indigenous operator with proven capacity to develop its host communities and build national wealth.
“That Nigeria Navy, the Director of the Department of State Service (DSS), Rivers State Command, the Commissioner of Police in Rivers State and other security agencies should not be used by the Rivers State Government against our communities.
“That His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari (GCFR) should set up a special fact-finding committee to visit the area to see the level of neglect, backwardness and suffering of a people that have hosted Shell for over 40 years, with a view to setting us free from the evil of SPDC.”
He called on leaders of thought in the country to prevail on Governor Wike to allow the peaceful dialogue that has been orchestrated by NAPIMS and the office of the Vice-President to progress.
In the same manner, those indigenous to Ngeje community also called on Shell to reach an agreement with Belema Oil-Producing Limited, and allow it to operate the OML25 flow station on behalf of the JV partners pending the divestment of the facility by SPDC.
In a statement signed on behalf of the community by the Legal Adviser, the Secretary and the Head of the community, Chief Egbelekuro Gaga Ekine Egebelekuro and Chief Ibinabo Kiliya respectively, noted that since Belema Oil has 7.7 per cent participating interest in the facility, he should be given the-right-of-first-refusal in the divestment of the oil field.
“That the GMoU should be activated and all monies due to the entire Kula Kingdom be paid and a new GMoU negotiated and implemented,” it said.
The people are also asking for employment opportunities for those indigenous to the host communities and Kula Kingdom and the other contracts for the natives.
In a statement signed by the Managing Director of the company, Mr. Igo Weli, Shell has high regards for its host communities in the Niger Delta region as it has for communities in other places.
Weli assured that the host communities in Kula have always benefited in the contract awards and unskilled jobs of the company, and pledged the commitment to continue to carry them along.
“Shell JV’s committed to the welfare of its host communities in the Niger Delta remains unshaken, even as we debunk every allegation that we neglected the development of communities in Kula Kingdom and Belema.
“The host communities of OML 25, including Belema and Offoin-Ama have continued to benefit from contract awards, employment of unskilled labour and our social investment programmes, including yearly award of regular and special scholarships to eligible candidates from the area.
“Notwithstanding that, SPDC has divested its equity in OML 24, which covers most of the communities in Kula and Belema. The SPDC JV has continued to implement agreed social investment programmes such as scholarships and entrepreneurship schemes for the communities. With the divestment of its interest in OML 24, SPDC relinquished operatorship of the facilities in that field,” he said.
